Terrorist Organization and Strategy discussion Terrorist organizations have operated in remarkably similar ways since the advent of modern terrorism in 196
Terrorist Organization and Strategy discussion Terrorist organizations have operated in remarkably similar ways since the advent of modern terrorism in 1968. Understanding the rationale behind how these organizations work internally, both because of their clandestine nature and in relation to external pressures is important for those who wish to impact terrorist’s effectiveness.Asnwer this:Our strategies permit us unilateral, preemptive action. Does this justify action against Iran or North Korea with their nuclear programs? Does the national security strategy make us appear to the international community as aggressive, loners, passive, or cooperative?How will we know if our homeland security strategies are a success? What should we establish as gauges of success? .,
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Chf.stopher C. Harmon
How Terrorist Croups End:
Studies of the Twentieth C:;entury
Terrorism stl.ldies are too young to have their Arnold Toynbee, Scholar Walter Laql1eur has
peihaps corne the closest. At this writing in mJ, Bolsherjks, and Social Revolutionaries, attended to how
government ‘,.,ould be rdonned and wonld work, not only to how it ~nitiany would be de
stroyed. They dreamed of new glea~ning towers but also had the maturity to plan for them.
1.2 How Terrori:c·t Groups End: Studtes of the T.ticnticth Century
Communists often debated the iss:lc of f.l.’~lTOIism, and ;aler student::, of such debates have
an inappropriate tendency to fix on deprecatory remarks of famons Bo1shevik:s about the
foolishness of individual tcrmrist!1~····as Vladi:nir Lenin snggested in t1 tling a booklet Lcft~
VV-ing Communjsm: An Infantile Disorder.;s
Such vangnardsmen of the era as Trotsky and Lenin did make the argumCIlT. iu the
course of a carrer in politics, that terrorism could be stupid or seJf-defeating. But these
same communists used te!TOr, and argued for terror, W:len it served tbeir revolutioni:uy
purposes. Vhat they lidiculed was not “:he deliberate and systematic murder, m2.1ming.
and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for a political end.’-‘!6 What they opposed was
individuai rerrOiism uncontroIle..1 by- thelf tight parry. The Lenin who could mock bomb
throwers 2-~ “infantile” penned a letter to the ”’Combatanr Commhtee” of St Petersburg in
1905 nrging revolutionaries to robbery, arson, and other terroristic acts, insisting t~at they
stop blathering about bombs and begin using them,l! Leon Trotsky, commander of the Red
Am:y, thrilled to the power of both communi~t dictatorship and terrorism again6t coun~
terrevolutionudes, penning a book exalting both, thTee years after the revolmion. V/hcn
the Soviet secret service m;:Ifdcred Trotsky in exile, it served as one more demonsrratioll
of how, once in power, Bolshevik communists viewed terror as they had while rising to
pO~ieT: through the eyes of cold utlJjtariaoism.
After] 945 a new chapter opened for cornmunism–one of bOL”tt remarkable state
power aud renewed intere..-‘,;l in expanding the revolution abroad. TeJTorism kept some of its
roles. Tntemational terror had son:e Hnks to communists, their intemat:onal organi7ations,
and certain of their capitaIs. 18 Rulers of communist East Gennan), criticized lerrorhrn dDr··
ing the high Cold ‘Alar, but for years they funded Konk-ret, the Tadicalncwspaper in Berlin to
which Ulrike Nkinhof contributed, and both parties helped this relationship grow into pro
vlslon of counsel and safe-haven to her Red Am!} Faction (RAF).19 Serious comrrmnists.
like serious anarchists, long for the state to disappear; many in both schools are certain
that much violence is required to bring this about. Stndy of only tactics may confuse: thus,
some observers imagine that the German RAF vas more anarchist than conunnnist~a
myth easily dispelled
re-ading t!1cir communiques. While the two movements differ 011
what happens after the revolnLion, the cormnunist knows that anarchism, Ievolntionaty
spjril, and terrori’Sm ail have their virtues; their atillty V ill depend upon tinting and circum
stance, and upon who becomes damaged and who benefits. And so the German Democratic
Republk was just one of many communist bloc states supporting, terrorist cells abroad.
The twentieth century lived with and endnred comIlillmsm. Witnesses, parJ.cipants.
and victims ;;aw it~ stages of nascence, its rise to power, its dangerous ~tatm: as deliberator
over half the world dnring the high Cold War and its sudden decline in authority by 199(),
Dnring eight deeade5 jn which its acUlf-rents governed important sta:es, terrorism, whether
guided by, or aided by, communists, took nnnumbered lives, A minority of these perished
jn classic, archetypal .international terrorist attacks by cormnunist groups with communist
state sponsors, Many died jn other kinds of violence when eommnnists were seeking power.
Many more died in communist states after power was successfully taken. The human dam
age has been chronicled (e,g” by a nan sucb asA1exander Solzhenitsyn, OT in long lines of
zeros, as added by the team of French aCE-demics vho compiled the The Black Book ofCom
munism, 1997).~! In the end, among the many and diverse classes o~· victims were individual
industrialists and arras-makers and top politician!> in Europe; tens of thousands of villaSe
j
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32
Unit 1 Tile Problem and Its Hist()fY
leaders bunted down ovet time in Indochina from 1940 to 1975: peasants in Asia caught np
wilhin insurgencies; and certain ‘vhole villag0s in Colombia and Peru) which dared to resist
the revolntionarjes via poorly f1JTIlcd militias. Com~l1unjst terror emnG to dozens of Qther
places and jn myriad conditions. In four or five years, gunmen with a reyolu~onary dream
could tum a pristine, acmired city of one million such as ]vInnievideo, T;ruguay, into a war
zone of urban :::;ttikes and daj1y gun battles, as the Tupamaro:c did by 1970.
No scholar bas thoroughly studied and described the many ways that late~1wcn1jeth
cent my conmlUulst terror groups came to their ends, but it is elTaot1o assume that rbey fell
whel~ the Soviet hloc did, in 198fJ and 1990. Fi:~st, many eo:nmunist miEtams did not fall;
they fought OU, as Revolutionary Organization 17 November did in Greece. It was never
tom:bcd by the Greek state and was indeed only broke;; by a bomber’s accident in 2002,
allowing a wave of orrests. 2l Second. othe: comrr:unist state-supP0l1cd grol1ps fought on
and live even now; for example, the National Liberation ,tnl1Y (ELN) in Colombia long
ago hecame :;;elf-supponillg. Today has outlasted the Soviet bloc hy t\’o decades and keeps
several thousand men and women in the fic1.d. Third, certain communist group”, did not fall
with the Kremlin but perished well before. This was tmc of the Belgian Cornmunisl Com
batant Cells. :V1ost Italian leftist ten’or groups disappeared before 1990, Law enforcement
was the- usual primary reason.
The GernUEl Red Ann), Faction (RAF). or Baader-!v1cinhof group, did nof quickly
disappear, but it too failed. RAF did not armOl:nce its dissolution and failnre in a c()mnlll~
nique uotil Aplill992, plOximate to the world-shaking fall of the wall. HLt the group’s n.:al
end was signaled as early as 18 Octoher 1977. On that lilly, four of the imprisoned RAF
1eaders-~includ;ng lovers Andref;s lklader and Gudruo Enslin-·attempted suicide (three- of
four succeeded). The LLftlutTIsajet tbeir comrades had hijacked to bargain for the fTcedoIn
of the prisone~’s in Stamrr~eim jail wa~ re.:apmrcd by elite Vest Gennan border guards
(GSG-9), who shot all the hijackers in the action. With only a handful of qJa;reLsome Con·
freres still operating inside the Federal Repuhlic. the RAF experienced de~paii·. The vjser
of them nnder
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